Very few if Anyone, here in America, knows just When ,Where and how Our Creole Culture came to Be..These chain of events that created our Creole culture as listed in Our Creole chronology , will hopefully , provide some answers and shine some light on Our Cultural history

the purpose is to validate the concept that Louisiana Creoles and their descendants are indeed a distinct ethnic group and more over

. the reader shall realize that the color of an individuals skin does not place the individual in a specific culture or remove him from a specific Culture...

CULTURE HAS NO COLOR

Columbus and His Crew

a Black Navigator and Possibly mulatto crew members

Pedro (Pedro) Alonso (Peralonso) Niño

, the Black navigator of the Nina.

Was probably not the only person of mixed Race to accompany Columbus .. The First Mulattos in the New World accompanied Columbus on his first voyage ..Andulasia, was a Moor dominated city in Spain and was the home of many Mixed Race Moorish Conquerors.

.After the Defeat of the Moors by the Spanish many continued to live there. So it Can be Presumed that many in The crew were mixed Race..

Columbus sailed from

Palos de la Frontera

on

3 August, 1492.

His flagship, the Santa Maria had 52 men aboard while his other two ships, the Nina and Pinta each held 18 men. The expedition made a stop at the Canary Islands and on 6 September 1492 sailed westward.

Let us look at the first voyage and the victuals embarked on the three vessels, the Nina, Pinta andSanta Maria. The first problem was to obtain supplies of food, wine and water. At the Canary islandsthey picked up fresh water, wood and the famous Gomera goat cheese.
Columbus' first voyage had the best victuals (and enough to last a year), not the case in his other voyages.
The menu for Spanish seamen consisted of water, vinegar, wine, olive oil, molasses, cheese, honey, raisins,rice, garlic, almonds, sea biscuits (hardtack), dry legumes such as chickpeas, lentils, beans, salted and barreledsardines, anchovies, dry salt cod and pickled or salted meats (beef and pork), salted flour. The olive oil andperhaps olives were stored in earthenware jugs.

All other provisions were stored in wooden casks which,according to some reports, were of cheap and faulty construction permitting the preserving brine to leak outof the meat casks and moisture to invade the casks of dry provisions. All were stored in the hold, the driestsection of which was normally reserved for those casks carrying dry provisions. A cooper (barrel maker) wasresponsible for keeping the casks tight, an almost impossible challenge.

Food, mostly boiled, was served in a large communal wooden bowl. It consisted of poorly cooked meat withbones in it, the sailors attacking it with fervor, picking it with their fingers as they had no forks or spoons. Thelarger pieces of meat were cut with the knife each sailor carried. At the time of Columbus, the only means of cooking was an open firebox called "Fogon." It was equipped with

a back to screen it from the wind. Sand was spread on the floor of the box and a wood fire built on it. Of course,all this was obliterated in stormy weather.Later on, portable ovens were made available to set up ashore whenthe opportunity arose.
Fish was cheaper and more readily available than meat and was served more often. Meats were often prepared insome sort of stew with peas other legumes or rice and served with sea biscuits which were soaked in the soup or inwater for edibility. Sea biscuits were purchased to last at least a year, providing they were kept in dry areas.

For drink the crew had wine and water. Both were stored in wooden barrels. The wine was red and high in alcohol -- a preservative feature. It probably came from the hot, dry, undulating treeless chalky plains of Xeres (Jerez)near Cadiz, where the vines were first planted by the Phoenicians, tended by the Greeks after them and then theRomans and much later the Moors. The wines while rich in character were not fortified at that time. Fortificationcame much later.
During the days of calm at sea, the sailors would fish and then cook their catch.

Gonzalo Franco Jacomel Rico Juan, servant... (no surname)

Juan de Jerez... (no surname)

Juan de la Placa ...(no surname)

Portuguese? Juan Martines de Acoque Juan de Medina... (no surname)

Juan de Moguer.... (no surname)

Juan Ruiz de la Pena... (no surname)

Juan Sanchez, physician Lope, joiner.. (no surname)

Maestre Juan Marin de Urtubia... (no surname)

Pedro Yzquierdo Pedro de Lepe... (no surname)

Rodrigo Monge Sancho Ruiz, pilot

The Voyage to the new World

Between 86 to 89 men accompanied Cristobal Colon on his first voyage. 20 on theNiña,26 on the Pinta, and 41 on the Santa María. After the Santa María sank, 39 men were left to establish a fort, La Navidad (the Santa María sank on Christmas eve), in the village of the Taino cacique Guancanagari.
What follows is a listing of crew members by vessel along with a separate list for those whowere left at La Navidad.

The Pinta was away when the colonists were chosen so her crew remained in the same shipwreck, with some remaining in Hispaniola and others returning on Niña.
Sailors of the day were often known only by their given name and the city whence they came;for example, "Alonso de Palos" aboard the Pinta, the form in which many of the names appear.The list is probably not complete and contains both duplications and omissions.

Alternate spellings are given in parentheses, and it is possible that the same person is listedmore than once with a slightly altered spelling.
The list was compiled by Alice B. Gould ("Nueva lista documentada de los tripulantes de Colónen 1492", Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia (vols. 85-88, 90, 92, 110, 111.Madrid, 1922-1938) and J. B. Thatcher (Christopher Columbus: His Life, His Work,His Remains, 3 vols. New York, 1903-194).

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